Japan 2023: Day 6 - Yakushima

You can't tell us what to do TLC!

Today is our last day in Yakushima but it was filled to the brim with stuff to see and do around the island, so let's get started!

A true, Japanese breakfast!

We once again had a traditional breakfast here at the hotel (a piece of grilled salmon instead of whole little fishies), which fueled us for today's tour: Yakushima Island Tour! Another Y.E.S. Yakushima tour, this one will be driving around the island coast and seeing the sights. Our tour guide was Steve, the owner of the tour company, and today we were joined by 4 other guests also staying at the hotel (yessss, even steeper discount!). And whadda ya know, they're all from Ohio as well! LOL, no matter where you vacation, someone from Cincinnati and/or Ohio will be there as well. Even if it's a remote Japanese island! Xenon, Sarah, Kate, and Fatama are all from Cleveland and are all good friends after meeting at their local dog park! We all got along easily and I knew it was going to be a fun day!

Xenon, Kate and Fatima with our tour guide Steve on the right

I think I'm gonna leave the rest of this blog to Jeff. Take it away, Jeff!

The tour was a whirlwind of stops, punctuated by long segments of driving down narrow roads. Exactly what we were expecting to do today, so that's nice. 

Senpiro Waterfall as well as the largest single granite rock in the country to the left

Tea fields

We got a lot of vantage point/photo opportunities early in the day, including: several smaller islands, some volcanoes, a tidepool, a granite-sand beach, some cows, the grave of a Jesuit priest, a 500+ year old Banyan tree, and loads of very scenic vistas. The highlight for our traveling companions was taking the Forestry Road around the south side of the island to see a bunch of macaques and deerts. (Angie here: I was so afraid that any second the monkeys were going to leap at the open window in the tour car and bite our faces!)

That is a face of rage

Communal grooming: Cute? Or their opportunity to talk about bringing about humanity's demise?

Yep, those are thoughts of murder behind those eyes

At least the deer weren't as threatening! 

Several of the braver members of our expedition took part in an outdoor, mixed gender onsen along the beach. I'll let you guess, of the six of us, who partook and who did not. We'll never tell. (It was me, Angie! And the water was nice and hot and naturally heated by geothermal heat. It WAS pretty much a tide pool though, so it was also very slippery from algae and there were sharp pointy rocks. I escaped without injury but Kate cut her hand. Was it interesting and a unique experience? Yes! Would I do it again? Nah.)

That's the closest photo you're gonna get to the natural, ocean onsen!

Most of the down-time on the tour was filled with cracking jokes (only about 33% of which we had to then explain to our guide due to generational and/or geographical differences), gawking out windows, or commiserating about Ohio. Steve is now thoroughly convinced that he'll not bother visiting our great state. 

Sandals, eat your heart out! (well, the sand was pretty big, like rock salt, and kinda sharp)

Climb up more rocks? No thanks. Jeff and I will stay here and watch the others scramble around!

(Angie: Don't forget our lovely lunch by the river! It was everything I wished Gatlinburg could be: a rushing river with clean, clear water (which we have been able to drink, BTW, from the rivers and the creeks and trickles that come down the mountain!) nice, flat rocks to sit on, no splashing, yelling kids, calm and peaceful and full of nature! And so far no mosquito bites!)

Lunch by the river with Xenon and Sarah!

The river!

Sneaky photo of Angie by Jeff

I'll leave you now with a bunch of photos and two soothing videos: a waterfall and a beach. 

Next time, Kumamoto, the home of the Kyu-may-mon. 

                                              Dinner was at Serious Kitchen which included:

Jeff: Deer meat on rice and soft boiled egg

Angie: a tomato and cheese mini-pizza (just one, not three)

And...cream cheese. We ordered this appetizer because the Engrish menu told us it was cream cheese in a special Kyushu sauce. We thought maybe it would be fried. No. It was two lumps of cream cheese with a light sauce drizzled on top over a small salad of radish and spring greens? So strange. I ended up taking lumps of it and adding it to my pizza! LOL!